A 300-level student of the University of Jos at the weekend committed suicide over the ongoing strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) nationwide.
The aggrieved teachers had on February 14, 2022 declared a one-month warning strike in protest against the government’s failure to meet their demands.
The deceased, Henry Ehis, of the Department of Actuarial Science of the Faculty of Management Science, of the University, was found dead last week at the Faculty.
Read also:
- Academic activities to suffer as ASUU embarks on a month’s warning strike
- Nigerian Universities’ Lecturers may go on strike- ASUU
- Strike imminent as ASUU threatens FG over unpaid salaries
The Guardian learnt that the deceased left a short note on his lifeless body to his parents, expressing his dissatisfaction with the current ASUU strike.
But some residents said suicide was not the best option.
Again, on Monday, March 14, ASUU extended its one-month warning strike for another two months, the decision taken at the union’s National Executive Council, NEC meeting held in Abuja last night.
Rising from an emergency meeting of its National Executive Council (NEC) at the University of Abuja, yesterday, ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, said: “Having taken reports on the engagements of trustees and principal officers with the government, the union concluded that government had failed to satisfactorily address all the issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA) within the four-week roll-over strike period and resolved that the strike be rolled over for another eight weeks to give government more time to address all the issues in concrete terms so that our students will resume as soon as possible.”
Already, Dr Chris Ngige, the Minister of Labour and Employment, has briefed President Muhammadu Buhari on the progress report over the on-going negotiation between Federal Government and Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that ASUU has embarked on one month warning strike on Feb. 14, to press home their demands about N1.2 trillion.
The union also wants the federal government to adopt the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) payment platform.
Ngige, who spoke to State House correspondents at the end of the meeting with the president, said the federal government had so far paid over N92 billion as earned allowances and revitalisation fee to federal owned universities across the country.
He said this was part of the implementation of the 2020 December agreement reached with the ASUU.
“Why I said that the 2020 December agreement we had with ASUU is on course in terms of implementation. There is a line that says the federal government should pay N40 billion for (Earned Academic Allowances (EAA) for ASUU and other unions, that has been paid.
“N30 billion was also budgeted or was to be paid for revitalization that also was paid late last year. N22.127 billion was agreed also in that December agreement, to be paid from supplementary budget as Earned Allowances for 2021, that money was also paid last year.
“It was put in the supplementary budget which was passed around June-July and the money was remitted. So, the government has done that.”
On the controversial issue of introducing the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) payment platform as preferred by ASUU instead of government’s Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), the minister said the matter would be revisited.
“UTAS, which the universities developed has been subjected to test by the body responsible for that, Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), which ran a user acceptance test also called integrity and vulnerability test, but in their report, they pointed out to ASUU, the areas of lapses in that platform, which will not make it usable as presently configured.
“But ASUU has written back to NITDA to say that some of those observations were not correct,” he said.
According to Ngige, arrangements have now been concluded for the technical teams of NITDA and ASUU to meet and jointly conduct or repeat the test on the UTAS platform, so as to find a solution to the impasse.
The Federal Government, in its reaction, maintained it had met all the demands of the union.
Minister of State for Education, Mr. Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, in an interview with newsmen at the end of the commemoration of the 2022 Commonwealth Celebration in Abuja, said: “Everything that the union demanded, we have done, including earned allowances and revitalisation fund. They chose to extend it for two months for reasons best known to them.”
However, ASUU has denied claims by the Federal Government that the University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) failed three integrity tests.
The union also accused Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) of misinforming Nigerians on the true position of the tests.
